The present invention relates to a surface-emitting semiconductor laser of excellent efficiency of light emission, and capable of achieving a rapid drive and compact device, and a method of manufacturing the same.
A surface-emitting semiconductor laser is a light-emitting element capable of integration in two dimensions, and is anticipated as the next generation high-speed and large capacity light source, for application to optical parallel communications and optical parallel computation, laser beam printers, and the like.
Such a surface-emitting semiconductor laser generally has a resonator formed on a semiconductor substrate, and this resonator is driven by passing a current in the direction perpendicular to the semiconductor substrate. Since this surface-emitting semiconductor laser has a current flowing in the direction perpendicular to the semiconductor substrate, this commonly has a configuration with respective electrodes provided on the front surface (the surface on which the resonator is provided) of the semiconductor substrate and the rear surface (the surface of the semiconductor substrate opposite to that on which the resonator is provided).
In a surface-emitting semiconductor laser having this configuration, in order to electrically connect the electrodes together, generally the electrodes formed on the rear surface of the semiconductor substrate and the electrodes formed on the front surface of the semiconductor substrate are connected by wires. However, mounting using this manner of wire bonding may interfere with the achievement of rapid drive or a compact device.